


Get Knocked Down, Get Back Up

by bowlingfornerds



Series: long fics [9]
Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drop Ship, F/M, Fighting, Grounder! Clarke, Healer, Season 1, Sky People, The Ark, Torture, forest, grounder war, grounders, leader!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke was born on the ground; the daughter of Commander Abby. She grows up as a grounder, wavering in her beliefs of the customs until one day, metal falls from the sky and there are people, running through the forests and screaming for joy. Her best friend Lincoln falls for one of the intruders, and she can't help herself but watch a certain man, leading these sky people.</p><p>A Bellarke AU.</p><p>From the prompt: write a story that begins and ends with fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Falls From The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is a three part story, and I'm pretty proud of it.
> 
> I didn't spend too long on it, and it's un-beta-ed, so all typos are my own. I really like the idea of Grounder Clarke, though, and so I wanted to write a story of how that might go, and how she might think differently if she was born on the ground. If this all goes well, there might be a sequel for the second season.
> 
> Enjoy. Or don't. I'm not your mother.

Clarke’s story began and ended with fire.

She was born by candlelight, on the Ground to a woman named Abby and a man who had long since died. Her screams filled the hut, and took the attention from the blood, pouring from her mother. She screamed for the light, burning her eyes, for the oxygen she was inhaling and the world that she had been born into – radiation soaked. She screamed for her mother, who was dying before her, in the arms of people she didn’t know.

“What will you call her?” A man whispered to her mother, the Commander. Abby’s rasping voice could barely be heard over her daughter’s cries and the struggling to stop the bleeding.

“Clarke,” she said. And that was all she said, as Clarke screamed for her mother’s presence, fading like the light of the candles.

She grew up, an orphan, with the spirit of the woods in her veins. Clarke ran with the grounders, following their footsteps in the woods and learning the trade her mother had taught. Healing came naturally to her, and she chalked it up to the blood that flowed through her – her mother’s blood, Nyko would say with a smile.

Nyko raised her, for the most part. He raised her in a small village and taught her to fix the wounds that were brought about by war and animals. She could sew up cuts, and she said “yu gonplei ste odon” for the first time at age nine, dripping a liquid from a vial into a man’s mouth. _Your fight is over._

She met Lincoln at ten – he was as large as many in her clan, and she smiled when he showed her kindness. They drew together, sketching into bound books of rough paper, with charcoal and sometimes the blood from a pricked finger. They found pencils in a bunker, once, and kept them a secret, hiding them in the coves in the trees, for only them to find. He became her best friend quickly, learning to be a warrior alongside her, whispering snide comments into her ear as Anya, only a couple of years older than her, but younger than him, tried to boss them about – as the new Commander’s second.

He even held her, as she screamed over a baby being left in the woods to die, the deformations on its face making it a weaker strand of their race.

“Not here,” he hissed, dragging her away. She was thirteen, and he was nineteen, six years older and far wiser than she would ever be. “You do not show weakness,” he told her, after pulling her into the woods in the opposite direction that the baby was left. “You only show me your weakness, okay?” She nodded, tears still streaming down her face. “Your weakness is your strength, but if you show it, you lose its power.” Clarke sniffed.

“Okay,” she agreed – even if she didn’t agree with the practice of killing the children.

“Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim,” he told her. Clarke brushed her hand roughly over her cheeks, getting rid of the tears.

“Get knocked down, get back up,” she repeated. Lincoln smiled then, squeezing her arms. He was her best friend, he knew what was best for her. She just had to believe in that.

It was when she was seventeen that something fell from the sky. The entire village went quiet as they stared, watching it fall - the fabric shooting out behind it and tightening.

“What is that?” Clarke breathed. Her face was smudged with war paint, and her armour was crooked, she had been out hunting and had only just returned.

“I don’t know,” Lincoln replied. “I really don’t.” A war meeting was called and Clarke and Lincoln waited outside for the verdict. A man walked out – Kensuk – just as big as Lincoln, with tattoos across his face. She wondered absently if Lincoln would ever get tattoos like that – and would he let her sit by his side, like she had during the other times, watching them getting painted on in the ceremony.

“She is sending scouts,” Kensuk said gruffly, to the people nearby. “We do not know if this is a threat. We are not to approach unless they step foot on our land.” Clarke nodded, and stood by Lincoln’s side until Kensuk turned to her specifically, glancing between her and Lincoln and sighing. “You wish to go?” He asked. She nodded. She was seventeen – still young for a warrior, yes, and better trained as a healer. But she could fight, and she could scale the trees like everyone else. “Watch for her,” Kensuk ordered Lincoln, and he nodded stiffly.

When they turned to walk away, he slapped a hand on her back.

“As if I wouldn’t anyway.”

It was large and metal – what had fallen from the sky – and Clarke watched from the trees as the people ran around, cheering and screaming. She sat on the branch next to Lincoln, whose eyes seemed to be following a pretty brunette through the grass. She was dancing and screaming with the rest of them, happy to be on the ground, it seemed, instead of wherever they had come from.

When Clarke tore her eyes away, they landed on a man across the clearing. He was a man – not a boy, like the others, with olive skin and dark hair. He smiled, watching the people run as he wandered slowly through the woods. His hair was slicked back, and his clothes were different to the others’ – black and more professional, while theirs were run down and worn.

She only dragged her eyes from him when she heard a bird sound, calling to retreat to further back trees. She did as she was told, stepping along the branches onto others, and climbing down, running quickly through the grass. But she doubted the children would notice if she was not one of them – they were all so spread out, so quick on their feet.

On that day, a group of them wandered through the forest. She watched from the trees as one swung over the river on a vine – he seemed to be wearing goggles. He pulled a sign from the bush, and she knew it to be the one for Mount Weather – shuddering at the thought of them. She didn’t have much time to think, though, because a spear flew out from the trees, hitting him directly in the chest. The other’s screamed, ducking and running, leaving the boy to bleed.

Clarke followed the men carrying him, tending to his wounds as they went. He wouldn’t live if she didn’t, and they knew it.

“Let him die,” Anya had said, with a wave of her hand. Clarke glared at her.

“No, I won’t. He did nothing wrong.”

“He was in our land.”

“He didn’t know we existed,” she retorted. “I will save him.” Anya eyed her for a moment before sighing.

“Fine, but after, string him up on the tree for them to collect – if they don’t, he will die anyway, I hear the animals have been wanting a new meal.” Clarke sat with him, the boy with the goggles, for a while, cleaning and packing his wound. She followed the men, carrying him to the tree, and climbed it, too, to keep him bandaged up. His eyes opened sometimes and they would look at each other carefully.

“You will be okay,” she whispered to him, as the others dropped to the ground. He stared at her, unfocused, before his eyes fluttered shut again. Then she followed the others back to the village.

Lincoln was called back to watch the camp, after that, returning to scouting and keeping an eye on the intruders that fell from the sky. Some days he took her with him. She would sit in the trees as he sketched in his book. Sometimes she would whisper over and ask what he was drawing – it tended to be the brunette girl or the metal machine, other times it was just him taking a tally of their numbers.

She watched from the trees as a boy with long, shaggy hair went on expeditions by himself, discovering bunkers even she had never seen before. Sure, he intrigued her – but not as much as the olive-skinned man. Much to her disappointment, he seemed to be hugging the brunette Lincoln would watch, and they tended to be fairly close. This man seemed to be their leader, she noted, and watched as they lined up to follow his lead – hacking off the bracelets that encircled their wrists.

When another boy with darker skin would approach him, the first would rally his troops, calling out ‘whatever the hell we want’, and making a speech about it being their ground now. Clarke and Lincoln would smirk at this, looking to each other before back to them. _It would never be their ground,_ she thought to herself. _They didn’t know what they were in for._

A couple of days later, Clarke was in the village, mixing herbs, when Lincoln walked over to her. He was quick, trying to look casual, but she knew the older man too well, to recognise the look in his eye.

“What did you do?” She hissed, standing up.

“A bad thing,” he replied. He only jerked his head and she followed him. Lincoln had a cave not far out of the village – it was hidden well by shrubs, and over the years the two of them had made it quite homey, with pelts and a fire pit. She followed him instead, down the steps and into the dark. But, clear enough, there was a girl on the ground, possibly asleep, possibly unconscious, possibly _dead_.

Clarke’s eyes widened, and she moved towards the girl, nudging her hair back to find her to be the one he’d been watching.

“What the hell?” She whispered, gently feeling at her neck and sighing in relief when she felt a pulse.

“She fell down a hill, West of here, and hit her head. I just wanted to heal her,” he said. Clarke sighed at this, looking to the blood that coated her face.

“But you don’t know how?” Lincoln nodded, producing the makeshift kit that Clarke had left there sometime before. He didn’t need to say anything – his eyes did all the begging.

Clarke worked quickly, packing her wounds and wiping up the blood. But she awoke as she stitched up her head wound. At first, it was groaning, and then her eyes opened, adjusted to the light, and she scrambled back, to the wall, with a scream. Clarke held up her hands, empty after the girl had pulled away the needle and thread, still dangling from her forehead.

“Who are you?” The girl asked. “What are you doing?” She felt at her head, before fingering the stitches. Clarke looked to Lincoln, deciding to speak in Trigedasleng.

“What do we do?” She asked in her own language. Lincoln shrugged, his expression far less panicked than her own. _We don’t show weakness_ , she told herself, and her muscles relaxed, her face becoming passive.

“She’ll die out there on her own,” Lincoln replied, and the girl looked between the two of them, not knowing the language.

“What are you saying?” She asked in English. “Who are you?”

“One of our own will kill her,” Clarke agreed in Tridedaslang, ignoring the girl all together. But the girl was looking at her wounds, finding them bandaged and clean.

“Are you helping me?” The girl asked. Clarke only glanced to her, before sending another look towards her friend.

“Clarke, _please_ ,” Lincoln said lowly, in their language. Clarke nodded, standing up.

“Chain her, then,” she announced, and she knew that the girl wouldn’t see it coming – not without knowing their language. Lincoln nodded, his jaw tight, before pulling the chains down from the shelf and clasping the cuffs around her wrist. She struggled against him, calling out, but he chained her to the wall anyway. Clarke approached then, with her knife, and the girl winced, crying out. But Clarke just cut away the remaining thread, hanging from her forehead and nodded to her.

She then packed up her things, and left.

“That was so stupid,” she told Lincoln, as they trudged through the forest. He just nodded.

“I know.”

The next thing she knows, it’s a day later and Lincoln is missing. No – not missing, _kidnapped_. She searched for him all day, before wandering out to the cave. She saw the blood first – something that hadn’t been there before, and the way the grass was leaning on way, forced to, as if something heavy had been dragged across it. Or someone, her brain supplied.

Clarke was moving quickly, after that, thundering down the steps and not caring about stealth – this was her best friend she was talking about. She reaches the inside of the cave and looks around, alone, eyes wide and jaw dropped. The girl was gone, as were the chains. There were dots of blood on the floor, and things had fallen from tables onto the ground – weapons removed from where they hung on the walls.

She was ready to scream.

Clarke knew it had been the sky people who had taken her friend, but she couldn’t tell Anya – not yet. She didn’t want that woman to be right about them, and she didn’t want a massacre, just to get Lincoln back. Not yet, anyway. Because, don’t get her wrong, Clarke would have massacred a village for her best friend.

She ran through the woods, jumping over roots and fallen trees as if it were second nature. When she got close to the sky people’s home, she manoeuvred through the trees. She found that they had constructed messy walls around their home – wood and plastic and metal, in a pile that stretched around their camp. And Clarke sat in the trees, straining her ears to hear the conversations.

“We need to ration carefully,” the darker skinned man was saying. She was impressed to find him still wearing his wrist band. A man nearby smirked – he had sullen eyes and brown hair.

“You’re not in charge of us, Jaha,” he said. She looked back to the other – Jaha – and narrowed her eyes. Was he their de-facto leader? Or did he feel like he should be?

“No, I’m not – but with the grounders out there, we can’t go and hunt,” he replied. The other laughed.

“We have a grounder in here!” He all but yelled. “And I bet they wouldn’t kill us if they knew that we’d kill him for it.” Clarke forced herself not to snort – the boy obviously didn’t know the grounders very well.

She sat there through the night, after many of them had gone to sleep, and watched them patrol. They didn’t have weapons – but sticks and knives, hoping they would be enough. Clarke couldn’t think of a solid plan, to get in and out with Lincoln, so she waited and watched as the brunette girl wandered past, telling anyone who’d listen that the grounder was okay – that he had helped her and healed her. Clarke stayed quiet then, too – not wanting to say that it had been _her_ that had done the healing and risk her hiding spot. Lincoln wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a bandage and a salve.

Clarke watched for two days, only moving to relieve herself, pick berries, and try to get a better vantage point. She refused to leave her friend – and wondered often if he was dead. But the conversations between Jaha and different members of the Skai Kru seemed to point to him still being alive. Her blood boiled over them, though.

“They’re torturing him, aren’t they?” Jaha had asked the brunette girl. She had locked her jaw and nodded, and Clarke strained her ears to see if she could try and hear her friend’s cries. But there was nothing. Jaha still stormed into the metal building, though, and she could hear the yelling from the trees.

She watched, a couple of days after he’d been taken, as the boy with long, shaggy hair, was carried into camp.

“He was stabbed!” A girl with dark skin called out. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore a red jacket. She had blood coming from her forehead, but otherwise seemed relatively unscathed. She watched as he was dragged into the metal building, and his cries could be heard for hours after. The brunette girl stormed about the place, and the handsome man with olive skin would sigh, watching, calling out to her – “O, come on!” – but ‘O’ would keep marching anyway.

She wasn’t allowed out of camp, it seemed. The man with olive skin wouldn’t let her, and so they swore at each other, and themselves, and O sat and sulked. Over the day, the cries from the metal building worsened – the boy who had been stabbed was getting bad and Clarke was tempted to go in and save him. She had guessed that the blade had been poisoned, and the girl with the pony tail and dark skin only left when the cries quietened for a while.

“I got the radio working,” she said to someone in a hushed voice, sending careful glances towards the olive skinned man (Clarke wondered if he didn’t want this ‘radio’ to work). “Wells is in there now – but it doesn’t look good.” The girl looked on the verge of tears, which surprised Clarke, because she struck her as a girl who never cried. Then Jaha was at the door, calling the girl over – Raven, it seemed.

“I think it’s the blade,” he was calling, and Clarke knew that he’d figured it out. She heard Lincoln’s cries only a few minutes later, and she held in her gasp, biting on her hand. O forced her way into the metal building not long after that, and the sounds of his torture stopped, and the sounds of the boy dying stopped. And Clarke stayed until nightfall, until she watched O lead Lincoln to the wall, dressed in Skai Kru clothes. Lincoln ran from camp, and Clarke glanced at the girl before following and having the reunion hug she’d been waiting for (and to slap him for being such an idiot).

If the girl could be nice to him – did that mean there was hope for the others?


	2. What The Ground Has To Offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, those 'graphic depictions of violence' aren't until the last chapter, and they aren't very graphic. I just thought I needed to mention the baby-killing thing in a tag somewhere.
> 
> ANYWAY, thanks for the reads and comments and kudos so far - they've been awesome. This is the second part on Clarke's journey to becoming epicly bad ass and destroying worlds. Awesome, huh?

“What happened?” Clarke asked, rushing after him into the cave. They’d hugged and held each other, and then Clarke had seen the cuts and bruises, and she knew something had to be done.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Lincoln replied mildly. She caught his hand and he groaned, so Clarke looked down, immediately letting go when she saw the hole.

“What happened, Lincoln?” She ground out, her eyes ablaze. He sighed, leading her into the cave. They sat on the pelts and her friend started the fire before he spoke.

“They captured me because I had Octavia locked down here – which was your idea by the way,” he said first, giving her a pointed look. Clarke sighed, covering her eyes with her hands.

“I’m sorry, Linc.” He shook his head.

“I was tied in the top of the Drop Ship-“

“Drop Ship?” He nodded.

“It’s what they call the metal thing. Anyway, they kept me tied up there and the leader is the older brother of Octavia, it seems.”

“The girl?” He nodded again. “What’s the guy’s name?” Lincoln paused for a moment.

“Bellamy, I think.” Clarke let the name roll around her mind, it was sweet on her tongue when she repeated it back. It reminded her of spring and the flowers growing and she smiled a little. “He was the one who started the torture.” Clarke’s smiled vanished and turned into a scowl. Asshole Bellamy.

“Why?”

“Because their friend… Finn, or something, was stabbed with a poisoned blade and they needed some of the herbs I was carrying to cure him,” he replied with a sigh, running a hand over his shaven head. “They didn’t think we spoke English.”

“And they do now?”

“Octavia does.” Clarke nodded silently for a while, mulling over the words. So the sky people were dangerous; that was an annoying part. She had hoped for a peace treaty with them before Anya got out the swords and they’d go to war. Clarke was sick of wars – she hated trying to heal them, and she hated watching her friends and family die.

Lincoln had once told her (along with every other proud member of her village) that her father was a warrior, killed by a reaper. They looked upon that with great respect, before turning up their noses at her mother’s death.

As Clarke trudged back to the village, she considered Bellamy. She knew that pretty faces couldn’t be trusted (reason ninety five why she didn’t like Anya), but Lincoln had said that the girl – Octavia – was his sister. He seemed to be trying to protect her, in his strange, mixed up way.

Back at the village, only one person noticed they were gone at all. She claimed she wanted to go on a trek for a while, and Lincoln tagged along only for a wild animal to attack. They nodding approvingly and walked on, not questioning the not-so-animalistic marks on Lincoln’s skin.

He kept disappearing over the next few days, and she could easily place a bet on where to. She would watch him in the early morning, walking home, and late at night, sneaking off. So, when she hadn’t actually seen him all day, and realised that her supplies in his cave were running low, she decided to go out there by herself.

It wasn’t a too-long walk, and she made her way there quite easily. She took the steps quietly, one at a time, and noticed the light already coming from his den. So, she descended the remaining steps and turned the corner to find him on the ground, above the girl.

“Oh, Lincoln!” Clarke cried, raising a hand to block the image. The two scrambled on the ground, trying to find some pelts to cover them. “I could have lived my entire life without seeing that.” She heard Lincoln chuckle, but her eyes were staring determinedly at the ceiling.

“It’s okay, you can look,” he told her, a smile in his voice. Hesitatingly, she lowered her hand and turned to the couple, watching her from underneath the pelts. Then she sighed.

“Anya would throw a fit if she knew this was happening,” she told him, moving through the cave to find her healing supplies.

“That’s why you’re not going to tell Anya,” he replied easily.

“What’s going to stop me?” She asked. Lincoln looked at her for a second before cracking a smile.

“I’ll change the pencil trees without telling you.” Clarke paused, looking over to her best friend as she narrowed her eyes. She needed those pencil trees, really. The coves the pencils were hidden in had been the same since they found the place. And now the sky people were here, she wouldn’t be able to wander into a bunker as easily.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she told him. He raised an eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t I?” They stared at each other for a moment before she repenting, sitting down and crossing her legs as she brought the kit onto her lap.

“Fine. Our little secret.” She looked to Octavia then, who was watching the two of them with curiosity. “I am Clarke.”

“Octavia,” she said slowly, as if Clarke didn’t already know. Clarke nodded, checking through the vials in her bag. “Were you the one patching me up?” Clarke nodded again, absently.

“She’s a healer,” Lincoln supplied. “It’s what she does.”

“But aren’t I the enemy?”

“I heal those with a heartbeat,” Clarke replied without looking up. “I do not care where they come from.” She knew Octavia would be watching her carefully, so she continued about her work. The other two sat, talking quietly as Lincoln explained that Clarke was there the entire time he was in the Drop Ship, and that she was probably the healer behind Jasper, too.

“The boy with the goggles?” Clarke asked, sitting up. Octavia nodded, her expression open, and Clarke assumed that they were never taught that it was a weakness. “Yes, he was to be killed. I wanted to save him.” Octavia stared a little longer.

“Thank you,” she told her earnestly. Clarke didn’t reply, but she studied the girl. She had seen her close up before – when she was fixing her wounds, but never like this. The girl was gorgeous, to put it short, with the long brown hair, beautiful eyes, strong jaw. She could have easily been born into Clarke’s village and she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

“Where did you come from?” Clarke asked next.

“Space,” Octavia replied. “There are one hundred of us, and we were sent to Earth to see if it’s survivable.”

“They were all criminals,” Lincoln added in.

“But most of our crimes were petty,” Octavia replied. “I’m here because I was born. Jasper and Monty smoked something they weren’t supposed to – I think Miller stole something. But there are a few murderers, admittedly.”

“What about your brother?” Clarke asked, because she remembered that he looked older than the rest – the automatic leader. Octavia sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Bellamy. He wasn’t a criminal – he shot the Chancellor, our leader – to get onto the Drop Ship, so he could protect me.” Clarke eyed her for a moment, wondering how a protective man such as him could also torture Lincoln. She voiced this and Lincoln stared into the fire, while Octavia swallowed, not meeting her eyes. “He felt like he had to,” was all she said on the matter.

Clarke agreed to come back another day, when she was done with the supplies, and speak with Octavia then. But she informed her that they should really have a meeting with someone on her side, to express that they don’t want a war. She left after that.

Clarke was sent out to scout the sky people a couple of times after, so she’d sit in the trees and watch them all go by. They had these large black things now – someone called them ‘guns’, which sent dread racing through her veins. The girl who Jaha called ‘Raven’ had fixed up the radio, and it seemed that Bellamy was not amused with this in the first place.

She still watched the man, even though he hurt her best friend. He didn’t seem too bad – but he was on a form of power trip, and they all knew it. So, she followed him when he went hunting.

It was a group of five, and they split up, Bellamy claiming he could go by himself as they others went in twos. His eyes were always reaching the trees, searching for grounders as much as they were for animals. She walked behind, silently, through the undergrowth, staying crouched and watching carefully.

But then he stopped, so she did, too. He looked around once, turning a full circle and eyeing everything.

“I know you’re out there,” he announced. Clarke figured she should get up – it seemed like the easiest way to not get hurt. So she did. She stood up in full view and Bellamy’s eyes landed on her, widening and his hands tightening on his gun.

“Hello,” Clarke said, raising her empty hands as a gesture of surrender. Bellamy didn’t reply, just narrowed his eyes. The gun was aimed at her, and she told herself that this was a good idea – it had to be. “Bellamy, please do not shoot.” He faltered, toying between lowering the gun and keeping it pointed at her chest. His name still tasted like spring on her tongue.

“How do you know my name?” He asked.

“I have been watching for quite some time,” she replied. “Plus, your sister is fairly talkative.”

“What did you do to her?” He demanded next. She furrowed her brow, before lowering her arms.

“Nothing. She just speaks openly and freely. Nice girl,” Clarke added. Bellamy lowered the gun a little more, but it was still in a position to fire.

“Why are you following me?” She shrugged.

“You’re interesting.” And that was all there was to it, he held the gun by his side, studying the girl opposite him. Clarke had blonde hair, braided and flowing loose. She had similar tribal tattoos to Lincoln, on her right arm – but he couldn’t see that. She had been given them when she became a fully-fledged healer, and they’d hurt like a bitch (the irony of which was not lost on her).  Clarke never wore the masks that her brethren wore, but instead had messy lines of war paint, where she’d dragged her fingers across her face. On her back was a katana, and she had several concealed knives, too.

She knew she looked dangerous, but he lowered his gun anyway.

“So you know _Lincoln_?” He asked carefully. She nodded.

“He’s my best friend – but we shouldn’t talk about this out here.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “The trees have ears.” Bellamy tensed a little, and looked around – and while neither of them could directly see another grounder, she knew that there would be one, somewhere. However, she suspected it was Lincoln.

Bellamy nodded, and walked a couple of metres behind her, as she lead him to the cave. There, she lit the fire, and stared at him for a while; noting that he had a smattering of freckles across his face, and a scar above his lip. His hair was no longer slicked back like it used to be, and she saw it ruffled and curling at the tips. Clarke tried not to smile – he had been the one to hurt Lincoln, after all.

“Are your people going to attack us?” He asked at last, breaking the silence they had formed together. She nodded.

“Most likely. You come from the sky, are there more?” He sighed, nodding again.

“A couple thousand more, yes.” Clarke bit her tongue, wondering what this meant for her people. She refused to get into a war – she just wouldn’t do it. “Will you help in the attack?”

“If I am drafted, I have to. But I am a healer, not a warrior.”

“Octavia said you healed her.” She nodded. “Thank you.” Clarke stared at the man opposite her, obviously uncomfortable in the cave, but subconsciously sinking into the pelts underneath him.

“I do not wish to betray my people,” she told him. “But I do not want a war.”

“Finn’s set up a meeting with your leader,” Bellamy commented. Clarke froze for a moment, and she decided that must have been what Lincoln was doing that morning, when she had left to scout.

“He’s meeting Anya?” She asked.

“No, I am. I’m the leader.”

“What about Jaha?” She tilted her head to the side and Bellamy looked surprised.

“You know about Wells?” Clarke connected the two names together in her head, and she realised he was the one to heal Finn, after he was stabbed.

“I listen,” she replied simply. He stared for a moment before shaking her head.

“No, his father is the Chancellor on the Ark, and he just wants to keep us alive. I’m the oldest, though, and I’m the leader.” Clarke nodded, wondering if he was really a good leader or not. But, then again, Jaha seemed to be the more caring and considerate one of the job, but they still went for Bellamy anyway. She shrugged away the thought.

“Anya will kill you,” she announced. Bellamy stiffened all over again, staring with wide eyes. “You will be asked to bring no weapons, and they will kill you from the trees.”

“How do you know this?” He asked quietly.

“Because I listen,” she replied. “And because we have been doing it since before I was born.” He nodded, absorbing the information. Soon, they stood up to go – he needed to get back to his camp, and Clarke needed to go tell Lincoln just how bad an idea it was for the two leaders to meet. They moved to the stairs and both expected to go up first, bumping into each other.

“Sor-“ she was cut off when she noticed their proximity. Clarke stood there, barely breathing as Bellamy stared at her. She noticed how close they were; how easy it would be to move up and-

The moment was over. Bellamy coughed, stepping back and letting her go first. She just nodded, turning quickly and making her way up the stairs. He’d tortured her best friend, anyway. Clarke slammed open the ceiling bars and climbed out, giving Bellamy a hand after.

She lead him back through the forest, until they were close enough to his camp to hear it.

“Be careful,” she told him. “I do not wish death on you.”

“Why not?” He asked as she turned to go. Clarke paused – _why not?_ She didn’t know, not really. It would be completely understandable to wish death on him. So she took a breath before answering.

“You tortured my best friend,” she said, turning around. “You hurt him and kidnapped him from his own home and have killed a couple of my people so far, since you landed in our territory. But I do not wish death on you.” He was watching her carefully, and she imagined that if she were him, she would be doing the exact same thing. “I wish death on no one. You do not deserve death. And especially not at Anya’s hand.”

She watched him swallow, and move closer. Not far, but a little.

“Did you save Jasper, too?” She nodded at this. “And you’ve been watching our camp since the beginning?” She nodded again. “Are you a good shot?” This time, she the corners of her lips rising at the thought of her and a bow and arrow was all the answer he needed. “And you never killed any of our people?” Bellamy had moved closer with each thought, and he was near enough that she could reach out and touch him. But she couldn’t. Because he was from the sky and she was from the ground – and Lincoln might be able to bend the rules, but she knew he would be banished for it.

Instead, she kept her hands firmly by her sides and looked him in the eye.

“Be safe.” Then she turned, running through the trees and scaling one. She looked down to find his eyes passing through the leaves, trying to spot her, so she ducked out of sight, waiting until he shrugged and trudged back into camp.

Back at the village, a man handed her a bow and arrow. Anya stalked up to her before climbing onto her horse.

“You will be in the trees,” she commanded. Clarke gripped the arrow tightly. “If you get a clear shot, you will take it.” She watched Anya ride off on her horse, and followed behind, on foot. There were six of them, to climb the trees, and Clarke situated herself on a branch near the bridge. It was the dividing barrier between Anya’s camp and the sky people’s.

She sat silently, arrow notched. But she didn’t want to fire on Bellamy – she didn’t want to fire on the sky people. It wasn’t that he was attractive, and had begrudgingly formed a small crush on him. It was for Lincoln’s sake, too – it was because she could see Octavia and Lincoln, standing side by side at the other end of the bridge, and she wondered if Lincoln was a traitor now.

She wondered if she would be, too, if she didn’t take a shot.

Lincoln moved, though, forwards ahead of the sky people on the bridge, until he reached the middle. Anya moved from her horse and they stared at each other. Words were exchanged and Clarke couldn’t hear them. After, Lincoln glanced back to his girlfriend before walking to Clarke’s side of the bridge. She swallowed. Was he picking a side?

Then Bellamy moved forward and she pulled back the string of her bow, following him along the bridge. Lincoln disappeared from sight, and Clarke glanced around. All she saw were the people on the bridge. However, down by the side of it, she caught movement. A boy with a gun.

Jasper, she thought.

He wore goggles around his neck, and his gun was trained on Anya – could she let him shoot her? Or was he there as a backup? Clarke didn’t know, but she didn’t really want to find out. She lowered her bow, glancing between the other trees. Anya and Bellamy were speaking now, and it was clear to the grounders that the sky people had declared war. They had blown up a village, south of them, but Bellamy spoke loudly about them being flares to signal the people on the Ark – before they had created a radio.

Anya was having none of it, and Clarke heard a bird call through the trees. A warning to take the shot. She pulled back the string again, aiming it at Bellamy’s chest and took three long breaths.

“Don’t do it,” a voice hissed beside her. Clarke jumped a little, clutching the tree for balance. The arrow stayed on the bow.

“I have my orders,” she replied.

“You can’t do what Anya says,” he told her.

“She’s in charge.”

“She’s a bitch.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I know that, but if I don’t shoot, I’m a traitor.”

“You’re already a traitor,” Lincoln told her. “You were the day you screamed for the baby, left in the woods. You were when you kept that boy alive, and when you fixed up Octavia. And you certainly were when you didn’t kill Bellamy in the first place, and instead brought him to my cave.” She stared at him, wide eyed. Only Lincoln was allowed to see her weakness. “Do not do this.”

Clarke looked back to the bridge, where Bellamy was struggling to hold on to the conversation and Anya was getting restless because no one was dead yet. And then she turned to Lincoln and nodded.

“I know what is right,” she said to him. “And war is not the answer.” She heard the bird call again, but ignored it, taking the arrow and sliding it back into the pouch on her back. Lincoln nodded reassuringly, and they climbed down the tree together. If Clarke didn’t shoot Bellamy – someone else would.

They made it to the end of the bridge, where Kensuk glared at them.

“Why didn’t you do it?” He hissed – but it was loud enough to draw Anya’s attention. Clarke didn’t reply, just glared levelly at the woman on the bridge. She scowled back, before turning to Bellamy and stepping away.

“Yu don yu klin, Klark,” Anya told her. That translated into ‘you have made your choice, Clarke’, and she knew it to be true. Clarke nodded, regret seeping into her stomach. She could have made the shot and stayed, although in a war, in a place that would protect her. But she made the call to leave – leave her home and the family she had forged. All because she didn’t want to start a war, or kill the boy with the olive skin.

Clarke strode across the bridge and stood next to Bellamy. “I am sorry,” she said. “But I will not help begin a war, and I will not kill a member of the Skai Kru – not when they do not deserve it.” She felt Bellamy’s eyes searing into her skin, but she didn’t care. (She had told him that no one deserves death – yet she knew herself to be a hypocrite because she had killed anyway.)

“And what about Lincoln?” Anya asked coldly.

“Lincoln can make his own decisions.” She turned, then, to walk down to where the sky people stood, unsure. She was not one of them, but Octavia still smiled anyway. She looked down the bridge, and Lincoln stayed put. Octavia’s smile faded at that, but Clarke shook her head.

“He knows what he is doing,” she told her. She would not get shot with an arrow – not until they’d received the orders. And Clarke didn’t know how quickly they’d come, so she moved behind the sky people and announced that they should go back to camp.

“Why?” Raven asked, staring at her as if she were poison.

“Because there are five armed warriors in the trees, with the arrows pointed at you.” With that, she turned and walked into the tree line, away from the bridge, and heard the rest of them follow only moments later. There was the sound of gunfire, but after that, it was silent.


	3. What The Fire Takes Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: tiny depictions of murder and violence, some of which towards a baby.
> 
> Final instalment - woo hoo. I'm considering writing a sequel, but don't hold me to it.

Very few of the sky people trusted her – and she couldn’t blame them. Their numbers were down to about ninety, and it was because of her people. But Bellamy had decided that staying away wasn’t a good course of action.

He would sit with her during the meals, and take her on a tour around the camp. He found her a place to sleep in the Drop Ship (however she did notice the extra patrols that were added after she joined) and took her to their med bay. She met Wells there, and they traded healing tips – she taught him about different roots, and he showed her the manufactured pills that they had with them. Bellamy always kept a close eye on her though.

After a couple of days, she decided to ask him about it.

“Do you think I’m going to kill everyone?” She asked him casually, as they sat around a fire. He paused, turning to her. “I mean, you’ve been watching me very closely since I arrived.”

“I know,” he told her with a sigh. “It’s just…” He trailed off and Clarke shrugged.

“Trust is difficult,” she agreed. “You’ll get there, though.” Bellamy nodded, staying silent, and the two of them ate without talking. Clarke watched the flames of the fire, and listened to the conversations around her – one boy threatening another with a knife, two girls discussing how someone was attractive. She wondered about these people – in times of war, and they still laughed and sat around a fire. In her own village, they would be preparing for battle. But she didn’t say this. She stayed quiet.

“Is Lincoln going to fight against us?” Bellamy asked quietly. She glanced over to him, finding his eyes locked on his sister’s form, by the fences, staring out into the trees. She could guess that the girl was waiting for a signal from her friend.

“I doubt it,” she replied. “Even if he is drafted, he will probably refuse to fight on either side.”

“Will they still accept him?” She shook her head.

“We are grounders by birth right – but if you do not continue to grow in their customs, you lose the privilege.” She felt Bellamy’s eyes on her skin and she turned to meet them. “We grew up very differently.” He nodded.

“We did. I was a janitor, on the Ark. And O lived under the floor.” Clarke raised her eyebrows.

“You protect her,” she said. He nodded. “It’s the same way that Lincoln protects me.” Her mind flashed back to the day in the woods, screaming for them not to kill the child. It would die on its own, and Lincoln had held her back as she announced herself as a traitor.

“Is he your brother?” She shook her head.

“He is seven years older than I. We met when I was ten. My father died before I was born and my mother died during the childbirth. She was Commander, at the time, and I was supposed to grow to be her second.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

“You’re supposed to be Commander?” She shrugged.

“By birth right, yes. But Commanders are not royalty, and royalty uses birth right to continue the line. Commanders are a matter of rebirth.” He watched her carefully as she spoke about her culture, and she wondered if she was saying too much, or just not enough. “When a Commander dies, they are reborn into another person, who will grow to become a second, to learn to be Commander again. My mother died, and some believe her spirit passed on into me. But her second took over, a woman called Ilya – and she was a cruel leader. Anya was her second, and Lexa is hers. More people believe that my mother, or Ilya’s spirit is in Lexa.”

“Do you?” Clarke shrugged.

“I don’t know. Lexa is as ruthless as Ilya – you would do good not to offend her.” Bellamy nodded silently, and Clarke leant her head against his shoulder, as she would if he were Lincoln. But he wasn’t Lincoln – he wasn’t a brother to her, but a man who was leading the camp she was born to fight against. She wondered if there was a certain type of hell for traitors.

In their silence, Clarke remembered the baby, screaming in the woods. She had stopped crying and stayed in her hut until nightfall. The baby had been taken far away, but it’s distant screams could still be heard. She was only thirteen, and she couldn’t take the cries any longer. In the night, she ran through the camp, her body low and her footsteps quiet.

She followed the wood by memory, finding the spot where the screams were loudest. And she knelt down, Clarke’s hands trembling as the new born cried out it’s lungs. There was no way to save it; the face was shifted, an eye covered by skin and a graft along the left cheek. It would never be accepted in grounder society and Clarke cradled it, crying with it over this. When the baby slept, she placed it back down, looking around, unsure.

It would die painfully on its own, and she couldn’t bare for that to happen. The knife was cold in her hands, and the whimpering of the baby in its sleep finally stopped.

“I do not show weakness,” she had said aloud as she trudged back to camp. Her face was passive after that, and she did not go back to that spot in the woods, for fear of the body still there, drenched in its own blood.

As if Bellamy was seeing these memories too, his arm snuck around her shoulders. They stayed there like that, staring into the fire, until Clarke’s eyes shut.

The battle came quickly after that. She expected a virus to swarm the camp; dwindle their numbers and make them bleed. But none of them left the camp without another person, and any time they were captured, they fought their way back. She was impressed by the delinquents, as they called themselves, and she slowly became impressed with Bellamy’s leadership.

The grounders were coming, she’d told him. So he had Raven build a bomb. At camp, she could see the smoke rise and the drums of war falter. She wondered how many of her people were dead. Was Lincoln? Was Kensuk? Was _Anya_?

She refused a gun every time she was handed one. She wouldn’t touch them. Eventually, Bellamy sighed over this, the battle only a few hours away, and they needed this time.

“You have to take one,” he told her.

“I am fine with my blade,” she replied, hefting her katana. Lincoln had made it into camp only a few minutes beforehand, with the warning of them coming at dawn. He was leaving for the water clan, a couple of days East, and had asked her to go, too. She was too ashamed to admit that she wouldn’t leave Bellamy, and instead told him that she wouldn’t leave the entire group, when they were facing a battle. Lincoln had understood anyway.

“Why won’t you hold the gun?” Bellamy asked, dropping it down by his side. Clarke sighed, glancing around. Lincoln was talking to Octavia in hushed tones by the gates, and she assumed he was persuading her to leave with him.

“Because there is a legend that goes with it. Why do you think we fight with swords and spears?” He looked around quickly.

“What’s the legend?” Bellamy sounded exhausted, and she knew he’d been awake for days.

“The first of us to touch a gun will be the cause of the Mountain’s win against us. The reapers will overthrow the land, and soon we will each become one.”

“All because you touched a gun?” He cocked an eyebrow. She nodded seriously. Bellamy rolled his eyes. “Fine, fight with your sword. Don’t come crying to me if you die, though.” Clarke smirked at this.

“I won’t. I’ll be dead.” Bellamy rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, and she instructed him to go and sleep before the battle. There was much to be done, yes – but it would get done whether he was awake or not. She noticed that he didn't question the Mountain, though.

 

 

 

Clarke’s story began and ended with fire.

In the battle, Raven and Jasper wanted to use the rocket fuel underneath the Drop Ship to burn the grounders to a crisp. It hurt Clarke’s heart, but she agreed anyway. They were in a war, now – sacrifices must be made.

Octavia was injured, and Bellamy handed her over to Lincoln, who promised to keep her safe. Lincoln turned to her, Octavia in his arms and smiled reassuringly.

“Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim,” he told her. She smiled back.

“Get knocked down, get back up,” she repeated. They nodded to each other. “Don’t die, big brother,” she said to him, and she could almost see how he wanted to stay by her side and protect her in his eyes.

“Don’t die, little sister,” was all he said, before he ran off into the darkness.

Bellamy and Clarke fought side by side, he with a gun and she with a blade. In the lapse, as the reapers emerged in the clearing and Finn ducked out of sight, they took a breath.

“Why were you following me, that day in the woods?” He asked. She glanced up at him, breathing heavily.

“You interested me,” she replied, just as she had told him when it was happening. She was bleeding a lot and she was fairly sure that there was a blade, embedded in her side. But taking it out meant a quicker death. Clarke was going to die anyway, she was sure. Bellamy smiled at her, and Clarke realised that every dying person got a dying wish, right?

In the moment before the reapers were slaughtered, and the cries of the grounders were directed back towards the Drop Ship, Clarke rose up onto her toes and pressed her lips to Bellamy’s. It was a chaste kiss, quick and simple, but as she drew away, she found his mouth following. A hand cupped the back of her neck and her free hand gripped at his arm.

They pulled away and she smiled, before turning back to the wall as the grounders rushed it again.

"May we meet again," Bellamy said lowly. She had heard them say such things before, so she repeated it back, hoping the words to be true.

"May we meet again."

 

 

 

 

Clarke’s story began and ended with fire.

She could hear Jasper and Raven yelling to each other inside the Drop Ship as she sliced through a man she swore she recognised. A woman to her right swung her blade at her, but Clarke parried and stuck out her foot, tilting it around the enemy’s ankle and tripping her, before her blade entered the grounder’s stomach.

There was yelling to get inside the Drop Ship next. And Clarke fought her way towards it. Nearby, Bellamy was still outside, fighting Tristan – the military leader of the grounders.

“Bellamy, go!” She yelled to him, slicing through the next man and making her way towards him.

“No, get inside!” He called back, ducking and hitting the grounder with his gun. He was out of ammo. She made her way to them, swiping out at Tristan with her blade – but he was a military leader for a reason, and he caught the blade with his own. They fought it out, cutting and swiping at each other, until blood dripped over her eyes. Bellamy was nearby, on the ground, still breathing but possibly unconscious. This was it for them, she realised.

 

 

 

 

Clarke’s story began and ended with fire.

As she fought, Bellamy awoke, and she made a quick move with her katana, stabbing it into Tristan’s chest and then pulling it out again. The Drop Ship door was about to close, and she pushed Bellamy up from the ground.

“Go!” She yelled to him. They found themselves running, and Bellamy jumped into the Drop Ship. Clarke didn’t. She couldn’t make the leap that he could – the one that Anya made straight after. And while she was worried for his life – she was more worried for her own at that moment. The grounders surged forward, but she knew the fire would be coming at any moment.

So she ran. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her; ducking under blades and pushing people out of the way.

She had to make it away from the Drop Ship.

 

 

 

 

Clarke’s story began and ended with fire.

It began in a small hut, with candles burning as she cried into the air and her mother died, bleeding out in front of her. It ended with a ring of fire, shooting out from underneath the Drop Ship, setting fire to the men and burning them alive. Their bodies fell to the ground, charcoaled remains of skeletons. Every inch of them was turned into ashes.

Clarke fell, too. Her legs were burned and her skin bubbled and blistered.

“Yu gonplei ste odon,” she whispered to herself. _Your fight is over._

 

 

 

 

Clarke’s story ended with fire.

 

 

 

Heda Clarke’s story began when she rose in the morning light, her skin red and raw, bleeding down her legs and making her cry out.

 

 

 

Heda Clarke’s story began in the ashes of the fire where Clarke died, and the next Commander of the grounders was born. Even if she had to go against herself and her own belief that no one deserved death, Heda Clarke would reclaim her birth right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the story line was supposed to be Clarke falling for Bellamy, from the sky, but it got lost on the way. Also, Clarke's plot is to turn into Heda Clarke - badass Commander who knows that she should be in charge, and how she's pissed off that this war has happened and now wants to go and reclaim what's hers and bring an era of peace and rough sex to the world.
> 
> I wonder if that got through.
> 
> Thanks for putting up with this story, and getting all the way to the end! You guys deserve medals! I don't have any, but if you click the kudo button it almost feels like I do.
> 
> Thanks

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I love receiving comments and kudos, so hit them up and tell me what you thought?!


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